Sermon for March 21, 2004

Elizabeth Macaulay

“The Prodigal Son”

Luke 15:11b-32

We know this story by its familiar title: "The Prodigal Son".

Perhaps a better title would be: The Prodigal Son, the Waiting Father, and the Elder Brother.

This morning as we hear this story, we will consider how it is we are the Prodigal Son. We squander grace lavishly in the process of coming to ourselves and to our God.

We will consider how it is the embrace of Holy love is offered time and time again.

And we will think about how the pain and outrage of the Elder Brother are so very often our own.

We will hear too how this story continues to be written.

Hear now the story of the Prodigal Son.

Read Luke 15: 11-20a

If you have not lived the pain of the Prodigal Son yourself, you know people who have. You may have found yourself impatient for all that life has to offer.

Unaware of the priceless riches of relationship and tradition and very aware of the siren call of experiences to be bought, you set out.

And you spend the precious stuffs you have been given, including the inheritance you have claimed. An inheritance built through generations of sweat and hope and vision.

And for awhile, the living is good and exhilarating.

Until the party dries out. A famine occurs. The realities of life can no longer be pushed away.

And you find yourself hungry. Hungry in body, hungry in soul. Amazed at how it is that you, raised to be treasured, find yourself alone, broken, and demoralized. You wallow for a time, lost in the muck of despair.

Until a day comes when you come to yourself. You remember that you were loved and nurtured and blessed into life and that this hunger you feel is reminding you that there is a place of grace in your life larger than the pen of pigs you find yourself in.

So you decide to return. To claim your mistakes and to beg for forgiveness. You start for home. You believe that the generosity of your Father is more powerful than the wrench of your shame.

You return.

Luke 15: 20b-24

The Father was filled with compassion.

Imagine it. In today's language, the son had point blank asked his father for all the money he could get - his whole inheritance - and left without a backward glance. Hungry for what the world had to offer, the pleasures to be bought, the son demands his share of the fruits of his father's sweat and leaves.

We could liken this to so many things that fracture families. Politics. Disappointments. Long festering feuds. Fear of honesty. Different religious convictions. Gender roles and career assumptions and drugs and friend choices and control graspings and we know the ways in which we allow moats of pain and disappointment to deepen between the people in our lives we most long to love and cherish.

The hours of worry the father put in must have been legion. His pain, frustration, hurt and disappointment had to be so very strong.

But it is not the places of disappointment that send the father running to embrace the son.

It is love. It is compassion. It is the wonder of knowing that someone beloved - someone thought to be forever lost is found. Alive. Willing to be taken in, forgiven, and loved.

The father runs to claim his son.

Luke 15: 25-30

We know the pain of the elder brother in the bile place of our guts.

We know the "it's not fair" of watching others reap what we so righteously long for.

We know what it feels like to resent and we know how the energy of our resentments can fuel the sometimes-satisfaction of a well-justified hate.

We have stood outside the party feeling the snarl of jealousy as we count the ways we have felt slighted.

We share the warp of righteousness felt by the elder son when we wonder at how it is this father could offer compassion to the wayward while taking for granted the steadfast.

We have stewed in the resentment juices of the elder brother.

And it will kill. this bitter sense that grace ought to be carefully doled out according to our liking, according to our rules, according to our sense of oughtness.

The Father in this story, our God, the teachings and presence of Jesus are lavish in their bestowal of blessing. On the least deserving, on those deemed unfit by culture, on the unlikely, on ANY who would turn and admit the God hunger that calls them to healing.

Why should God's generosity be such an affront to us?

We, who feel the clench of resentment and we who so need to forgive those we would put outside of God's homecoming party.

We need help. We need to hit our knees in prayer and ask for the pain of our resentments and grudges to loose their grip on our souls.

Brother Jesus, grant us courage as we learn and allow the lavishness of grace.